16.3 |
Military fatalities and the bereaved
•
The DCA had
been endeavouring to get a full picture of the extent of the
delays,
working
with MOD officials and Mr Gardiner’s Office, and had compiled
a grid
showing the
number of inquests yet to be undertaken. That analysis
indicated
that there
were 39 military deaths and 5 civilian deaths relating to Iraq in
the
“inquest
queue”, excluding cases where Mr Gardiner was waiting for
evidential
material
from the MOD.
•
The first
military deaths in that queue related to the loss of a Sea King
helicopter
on 22 March
2003.126
The first
deaths on which Mr Gardiner had not yet
received material
from the MOD related to the loss of a CH46 helicopter
on
21 March
2003.
•
Mr Gardiner
estimated that to clear the backlog, he would need an
additional
Assistant
Deputy Coroner and continued funding for the additional
Coroner’s
Officer, at
a cost of £125,000 a year for two years. DCA officials had not
yet
assessed
whether that estimate was realistic. The DCA was “poorly placed”
to
provide
that funding. If those resources could not be found, the current
position
that most
inquests were held in Oxfordshire (rather than in the home area
of
the
deceased) would need to be reconsidered.
217.
Ms Harman,
Mr Browne and Mr Ingram met on 24 May.127
Ms Harman
advised
that
further work by DCA officials suggested that £250,000 would be
required over six
months in
order to list or complete all cases by the end of the
year.
218.
A record of
the meeting by Mr Browne’s Assistant Private Secretary,
which
was circulated
only within the MOD, reported that Mr Browne had agreed that
if
there was
a “practical plan” to reduce the backlog and there was no
possibility of
securing
funding from the Reserve, then he was “prepared in principle to put
in
£125,000 for
the first year”.
219.
An informal
record of the meeting by a DCA official reported that
Mr Browne had
agreed to
provide £125,000, and to hold a further £125,000 “in reserve” which
could be
made
available depending on progress.128
220.
In a Written
Ministerial Statement to the House of Commons on 5
June,
Ms Harman
and Mr Browne set out the support that the Government would
provide
to the
Oxfordshire Coroner’s office to enable it to deal with “outstanding
inquests”:
•
three
Assistant Deputy Coroners (Sir Richard Curtis, Ms Selena
Lynch and
Mr Andrew
Walker);
126
The (Royal
Navy) BOI into the loss of a Sea King helicopter on 22 March 2003
had reported on
1 May 2003
(it was the first BOI relating to Op TELIC to report); the BOI
report had been made available
to families
on 9 June 2003.
127
Minute
APS/SoS [MOD] to SPPol SC‑D, 24 May 2006, ‘Iraq Inquest Backlog –
Oxford Coroner –
Meeting
with Harriet Harman MP’.
128
Email
Woolfenden to Sadler, 24 May 2006, ‘Iraq Deaths’.
115